The game had been conceded — by the announcers, at least. By the top of the ninth, they had already named Lance Berkman, whose seventh-inning home run had put the Astros up 4-2, the “Chevy Player of the Game.”

The Houston crowd cheered as closer Brad Lidge struck out the first two Cardinal batters he faced. The Astros were one out from advancing to the World Series, and the crowd roared its approval.

One more out. David Eckstein — whose picture appears in the dictionary under the word “scrappy” — eked out a single. Jim Edmonds walked. Lidge wiped a line of sweat from his forehead.

Albert Pujols, a man built like a tank, a hitter whose rib cage seems molded from reinforced steel, stepped up to the plate.

The crowd began to sweat.

Lidge threw a slider. And Pujols crushed a home run of gargantuan proportions that rocketed off of the scaffolding high above the center field wall. A home run so big, so epic, and so powerful , and coming as it did at such an important moment, that its lore will live on for years to come. It was a home run so pure that it could be appreciated as an aesthetic event. It was cold, clinical, and utterly devastating.

The announcers certainly seemed disappointed.

I have no rooting interest in this series. Though the Astros are the underdogs, and I like underdogs, I find it hard to cheer for a team that subjects the viewing public to images of Bush 41 and Babs smooching on the Kiss Cam.

So yeah, that home run felt like karma coming to bite the Astros, and their jumbotron camera operators, in the ass. Texas Republicans just can’t catch a break these days.

But it’s hard not to feel for a team that comes so close to winning, only to suffer an ignominious defeat. As one fan wrote on the Astros blog The Crawfish Boxes:

I hear ya, bub — that’s exactly what I said when I saw the Kiss Cam.

Update: Here is Bill Simmons’ take on the game. He shows considerably more sympathy for Astros fans than I managed above:

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